This kind of fiber-made surface fastener is, generally, manufactured of so-called pile woven or knitted fabric having a multiplicity of loops erected from a surface of a flat substrate woven or knitted fabric, the substrate woven or knitted fabric generally composed of a ground weave of a fiber-made woven fabric or knitted fabric. Usually, after loop (pile) yarn composed of monofilament is woven or knitted simultaneously with the weaving or knitting of the substrate woven or knitted fabric constituting the ground weave, a hook piece is produced by cutting partially a side portion of each loop, or after a top portion of the loop is cut out, it's front edge is melted into a spherical (or semispherical) shape by heating so as to produce a mushroom piece, which serves as a male engaging element. In case of a female engaging element, as a loop yarn woven or knitted simultaneously with the weaving or knitting of the substrate woven or knitted fabric, multifilament is used and after the weaving or knitting is completed, it is thermally set or dyed. With the loop configuration kept as it is, the loop is napped so as to separate the multifilament to single fibers so that they face multi-directions.
If an external stress such as cutting or buffing is applied to the loop, whose shape is fixed by thermal setting before the aforementioned cutting or napping, the loop is pulled out or extracted from the substrate woven or knitted fabric, so that it loses the function of the surface fastener. To prevent this, usually, the rear surface of the substrate woven or knitted fabric in which the loops are formed on a single surface, that is, a face having no loops, is back-coated. This back coating is carried out by applying resin solution such as nylon, polyester or polyurethane melted by solvent. These resin solutions are solidified and hardened when the solvent is removed. Further, these resins permeate gaps formed among intersections of the composition yarns of the substrate woven or knitted fabric together with the solvent, and bond together and solidify among the composition yarns of the substrate woven or knitted fabric and between the same composition yarns and loop yarns. Further, at the same time, it permeates among a multiplicity of fibers constituting the composition yarns and solidifies and as a consequence, not only the rear surface of the substrate woven or knitted fabric, but also the entire substrate woven or knitted fabric is hardened.
To exclude such failures, for example, Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 1-33656 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-309805 has proposed that hot melting yarn is used as part of weft yarns or warp yarns in a single pile or double pile (loop) woven fabric and by melting the hot melting yarn by heating after a loop woven fabric is woven, the hot melting yarn and other composition yarn are bonded together and solidified inside the substrate woven fabric. Consequently, no special adhesive agent is used and any hardened resin portion appearing on the surface of the substrate woven fabric is almost eliminated and thus, plasticity of the entire surface fastener can be secured, which the above publication has mentioned.
Further, according to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-238708, the ground weave is woven with so-called leno structure in which each time when the warp yarn of the substrate woven fabric constituting the ground weave strides over every weft yarn, the loop yarn is entangled by swinging to the right or left, in order to prevent the loop yarn from falling out. The same publication also has proposed using the same hot melting yarn as the above-mentioned publications for warp yarns entangled by the loop yarn and warp yarns disposed on both sides of the loop yarn and in this case, due to the leno structure and fusion of the hot melting yarns, loosening of the loop yarn and collapse of the weaving structure are prevented effectively.
By the way, diversification of application of this kind of surface fasteners has been accelerated further and the surface fastener has been used not only for applications such as ordinary clothing and commodities or fixing tool of industrial machines but also directly in fields of various sports goods, sanitary goods, and medical appliances. Representative examples thereof are various kinds of tying bands, various kinds of moisture absorbing belts as proposed by the aforementioned patent document, and bandage and watch band which make a direct contact with the skin. Often these products are demanded to have plasticity and at the same time, a touch feeling of a portion making contact with the skin is taken as important.
However, because in each of the fiber-made surface fasteners proposed by the above-mentioned patent documents, the rear surface is not back-coated with various kinds of resins, although plasticity is entirely intensified and the touch feeling on the rear surface is more or less improved, the rear surface makes feel rough and depending on the kind of used yarn, make feel rugged because the number of bending of warp yarn which is bent when striding over weft yarn on the rear surface is quite large. This is a fatal disadvantage for application in which the rear surface of the surface fastener makes a direct contact with the skin.
The present invention has been achieved to solve these conventional problems and a specific object of the present invention is to provide a fiber-made surface fastener in which engaging elements are never fall or extracted out without any back coating so that its configuration can be maintained over a long period and the touch feeling of its rear surface is soft and gentle to the skin.
Other objects of the present invention will be made apparent from a following description.